This is the second part of a two-part analysis. A print (PDF) version of the memo is available here
The two basic weaknesses of counterinsurgency theory – the doctrines’ wildly ambitious social objectives and its myopically narrow conception of “victory” — are directly reflected in General Stanley McChrystal’s August “Commander’s Assessment” of the situation in Afghanistan.
A. McChrystal’s strategic approach will ultimately require huge numbers of soldiers and resources – far more than are now being discussed.
The Commander’s Assessment defines dramatically ambitious goals for a counterinsurgency campaign: The campaign must:

“…earn the support of the Afghan people and provide them with a secure environment.”
…focus on operations that bring stability while shielding [the the civilian population] from insurgent violence corruption and coercion.
…protecting the people means shielding them from all threats….
…protecting the population is more than preventing insurgent violence and intimidation. It also means that [coalition forces] can no longer ignore or tacitly accept abuse of power, corruption or marginalization.

This is a completely different objective than the goal of neutralizing Al Qaeda and will demand resources far beyond anything that has been publically proposed. John Nagl — one of the three authors of FM-3-24 — has repeatedly warned that actually doing the “armed social work” envisioned in FM-3-24 will require far more troops than anyone is currently discussing. This is how Michael Crowley summarized Nagl’s view in the January, 2009 New Republic:

Nagl’s rule of thumb, the one found in the counterinsurgency manual, calls for at least a 1-to-50 ratio of security forces to civilians in contested areas. Applied to Afghanistan, which has both a bigger population (32 million) and a larger land mass (647,500 square miles) than Iraq, that gets you to some large numbers fast. Right now, the United States and its allies have some 65,000 troops in Afghanistan, as compared to about 140,000 in Iraq. By Nagl’s ratio, Afghanistan’s population calls for more than 600,000 security forces. Even adjusting for the relative stability of large swaths of the country, the ideal number could still total around 300,000–more than a quadrupling of current troop levels.

Moreover, from a purely military point of view, if we are eventually going to end up sending 300,000 troops, it is vastly preferable to “bite the bullet” sending the bulk rapidly to dramatically alter the tactical situation rather than in small driblets over a period of several years.
Nagl also notes that in the longer term, maintaining such large numbers of soldiers in Afghanistan will create nearly irresistible pressure to reinstate the draft and will require a massive increase in the military budget – one that will eventually necessitate new taxes.
For Nagl and many other conservatives, these are sacrifices that all Americans should be gladly willing to make. They point to the example of the stalwart working class and middle class British families who sent generation after generation of their sons to fight in India, Asia, Africa and the Middle East during the era of the British Empire. Most ordinary British citizens at that time fully accepted the need for large garrisons of British troops doing “armed social work” in British colonies around the globe on an essentially permanent basis. By the 1920’s many British families had proudly sent three or four successive generations of their young men to fight “For the Empire” as their noble patriotic duty.
It is dubious, however, that a majority of Americans share this perspective and are willing to make the same kind of commitment today. The current arguments over sending 40,000 or 50,000 more troops are therefore really just preliminary skirmishes in a much larger battle to convince the American people to support a full-scale, 300,000 soldier counterinsurgency campaign that may last for decades.

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This item by Ed Kilgore was first published on October 21, 2009.
As the economy continues to struggle, it´s increasingly obvious that some sort of federal job tax credit may be the only ´´second stimulus package´´ that could gain traction in Congress.
The idea has long attracted conservative support, but lately progressives, including former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and the Economic Policy Institute, have been out in front. It´s popular among some Democrats and economists in part because its costs are dependent on its success (unlike across-the-board tax cuts), and in part because it´s viewed as a way to counteract offshoring of jobs.
EPI has a new job tax credit proposal out, and it´s very focused on designing a credit that is large enough to have an immediate impact, temporary enough to keep its cost relatively low, and efficient enough to avoid corporate freeloading.
If there´s another idea that can serve as the centerpiece of a follow-up to the stimulus legislation, I don´t know what it would be. Waiting for a cyclical economic recovery seems irresponsible, and certainly dangerous to the party controlling the White House and Congress.

This item by J.P. Green was first published on October 19, 2009.
The moral case for the public option in health care reform has been well-made by numerous Democratic leaders, activists and writers, and some have also made a persuasive case that it’s good political strategy. Robert Parry’s Consortium News post, via Alternet, takes the argument a step further; that the public option is not only politically-wise; it should be implemented on a faster track — or the Democrats could be risking “electoral disaster.” As Parry explains:

Indeed, if the Democrats abandon the public option for the sake of passing a bill like the one that came out of the Senate Finance Committee, they may be courting electoral disaster once voters grasp that they will have to wait years for the law to be implemented and then that it could lead to higher costs for much the same unpopular private insurance plans.
…As the legislation stands now, many of the key features that hold some promise of helping consumers – such as the “exchange” where individuals and small business would shop for the best product – won’t even take effect until 2013. That means that Americans now facing the crisis of no health insurance won’t get much help for another four years, if then.
…By contrast to the four-year phase-in for these relatively modest reforms, the Medicare single-payer program for senior citizens was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 30, 1965, and was up and running less than a year later.
..The implementing delays mean that in both 2010 and 2012, Republicans will be free to make the truthful case that the Democrats – despite their promises – had accomplished little to help the American people on health care. Already, Republican senators are using the talking point that the four-year delay is part of a budgetary trick to make the bill appear cheaper over 10 years than it would be if its key features took effect quickly.

Parry believes the implementation delays of both the insurance exchanges and public option ‘trigger’ could work against each other to an even more deleterious effect:

…But the insurance exchanges won’t open until 2013, so it may take years before any trigger would be pulled. At minimum, the industry would have earned a lengthy reprieve.
And by the time, the exchanges have a chance to be tested, Congress and the White House could be in Republican hands. If that’s the case, the Republicans might well undo even the triggered public option. Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans would surely not worry about ramming their preferred policy through the Congress.

Conversely, Parry sees a huge upside to a bolder implementation strategy:

On the other hand, if Congress enacts a public option now, it presumably could be implemented at least as fast as Medicare, especially if it were piggybacked onto the existing Medicare bureaucracy. That would enable Democrats to show they had accomplished something beneficial for the public before voters go to the polls in November 2010.
By 2012, if the CBO predictions of substantial savings prove true, Obama could campaign for reelection on the basis that he had improved the welfare of the American people — and the budget outlooks for government and business.

It would be bitterly ironic if Democrats enacted a strong health care reform bill, with a solid public option, but then suffered political damage because it was implemented too late to do us some good. Parry makes a compelling case that putting implementation of both a public option and health exchanges on a faster track is wise strategy.

This item by Ed Kilgore was first published on October 9, 2009
Amidst the widely varying perspectives on the health care reform battle, one astute observer, Chris Bowers of Open Left, has always had a very clear focus. He’s viewed the public option fight in the context of a potentially momentous test of strength between congressional progressives (notably the House Progressive Caucus) and the Blue Dogs. In fact, Bowers has been something of a prime mover in what he’s dubbed the “Progressive Block” strategy, wherein the Democratic Left begins to emulate, in carefully chosen cases, Blue Dog willingness to threaten defeat for administration-backed legislation if its minimum requirements aren’t met.
Chris has become reasonably satisfied that the “Progressive Block” has or at least should have a big impact on the shape of health reform legislation. So now he’s looking down the road to other issues for which this strategy might be approrpriate:

[W]hat should House Progressives target next if they achieve this proof of concept? Climate change might not be feasible, since almost every House Progressive already voted in favor of the American Clean Energy and Security Act. Afghanistan probably won’t work, since their won’t be anymore supplemental appropriation bills (it will be merged into the budget now), and because Republicans will vote in favor of Afghanistan funding as long as it isn’t tied to any other legislation. Financial regulation is difficult because it requires drawing a bright line on such a murky subject. Immigration is a possibility, but given all of the delays in even introducing an immigration bill, it isn’t clear at all that the Democratic leadership considers immigration reform to be must-pass legislation.
The best bet is for Progressives to target the budget next year. Specifically, they should demand a substantial, probably 10%, increase in taxes on the wealthiest 1% of Americans.

Chris goes on to explain this suggestion in terms of various criteria: the upper-end tax increase would be popular, populist, fiscally responsible, unacceptable to any conservatives, and clearly eligible for budget reconciliation treatment (which avoids the 60-vote barrier in the Senate). In other words, it would be a potentially successful and fruitful initiative that would be highly differentiating by party and ideology. He doesn’t explicitly say this, but it would also represent a pretty direct challenge to the deficit-obsessed Blue Dogs.

This item by Ed Kilgore was first published on October 8, 2009.
The last staff post on public option alternatives percolating in the Senate really got me thinking: are the senators or health reform advocates kicking around state-based approaches to the public option really thinking through the political implications of taking this route? Or are they just focused on their own legislative problems?
The one thing that’s clear about these approaches is that they would considerably ramp up the importance of health reform in state politics going into an already crazy 2010 election cycle. I’ve got a post up at The New Republic raising this issue, and wondering if state politicians in either party are quite ready for this challenge. In effect, letting the states make the most fundamental decisions about how to design a health care system–not just for the Medicaid or SCHIP participants they currently deal with, but for pretty much everybody–would simply shift all the many controversies we’ve seen in Congress this year to state capitals.
It’s hard to say how this would all play out. Chris Bowers suspects Republican-controlled states (including some where a public option is most needed) would kill any sort of public option immediately. Others may be more sanguine given the general popularity of the public option nationally. All I’m saying is that senators and health reform advocates need to think and talk about this political reality at some depth, and not simply seize on state-based approaches as a clever way out of their own dilemmas.
It’s reassuring that one of the proponents of a state-based approach, Tom Carper, is a former Governor, who presumably understands the political implications at the state level. And it’s encouraging that two others, Maria Cantwell and Ron Wyden, are trying to enable the states to adopt reforms more radical than any we would see in a one-size-fits-all national reform template. But a 2010 state political cycle dominated by a raucous health care debate is a tricky proposition, particularly given the potential impact of health industry dollars on legislators and candidates alike.
Look before you leap, senators.

In recent weeks, and particularly since the September 12th protests in Washington, a significant number of national commentators have advanced the notion that behind the stated objections raised against Obama by the Tea Bag/Town Hall/ September 12th protesters (and the much larger group that opinion polls indicate sympathize with them) there actually lies a deep undercurrent of racism.
The main evidence that is offered for this view is the deep underlying “us versus them” cognitive framework in which many of the protesters’ objections are expressed – “I want my country back”, “Obama hates white people”, “We are the real America.” It seems almost self-evident that when a group of white people pose issues in stark “us versus them” terms and when the person they are opposing is Black, then racism must somehow be intimately involved.
At the same time, it is also a very easy task to find examples of just about every imaginable form of anti-Black racial prejudice expressed somewhere or other in the vast number of broadcasts of various conservative talk radio commentators or in the comment threads of conservative discussion sites or in the texts of anonymous viral e-mails.
Combine item A with item B and op-ed commentaries accusing the protesters and their sympathizers of racism seem to literally jump out of the keyboard and write themselves.
But before concluding that anti-Black racism is actually a major source of the Tea Party/Town Hall protesters attitudes toward Obama, there are two additional steps that have to be taken: (1) to try to seriously gauge the extent (and not just the presence or absence) of racist attitudes among the protesters and (2) to consider possible alternative sources of deep “us versus them” polarization that might be behind the protesters’ attitudes.
To do this, it is necessary to look specifically at the stereotypes that exist about different social groups. It is group-specific stereotypes that distinguish one kind of prejudice from another — racial prejudice against African-Americans, for example, from prejudice against Mexicans, Moslems, radicals, homosexuals or drug users. These groups all experience hostility, prejudice and discrimination, but the specific stereotypes that define them are entirely different.
In America, there are two main categories of anti-Black racist stereotyping:
The first is older, segregation- era stereotypes of African Americans as “lazy”, “stupid” and/or violent sexual brutes. These segregation-era stereotypes are still widespread in overtly racist web sites like those of the Christian Identity, White Power and Neo-Nazi movements. They occasionally show up in more mainstream conservative sites and have sometimes appeared in e-mails sent by staff members of conservative political candidates and officials – particularly among staffers of the political dynasties in the South that have deep roots in the segregation era. Interestingly however none of these “old fashioned” racist slurs have gone massively viral and gained widespread popularity among conservatives and Republicans in the way that other attacks on Obama have done.
Overlaying the traditional racist images are four new and distinct post-civil rights era negative stereotypes of Blacks – (1) the angry and anti-white “black militant”, based on 1960’s figures like Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm X and Huey Newton (2) the “Welfare Queens” of the 1970’s and 1980’s , Black people supposedly “ too lazy to work” but driving Cadillacs while living off welfare (3) the “racial guilt hustler” (symbolized by African-American leaders like Al Sharpton) and (4) gangbangers and crack cocaine dealers, symbolized by swaggering “gangstas” with 9-millimeter pistols and gold teeth.
These new negative images are more widely disseminated than the segregation-era racist stereotypes. They frequently appear in discussions on the larger conservative web sites and are a staple of commentators like Rush Limbaugh, Mike Savage and others. While it is possible to criticize groups like gangbangers without intending to invoke any racist stereotypes, the context of the remarks usually gives the game away. When former civil rights leader Congressman John Lewis criticizes gangbangers, you know he’s not being racist; when former KKK leader David Duke calls their behavior “typical”, you know that he is.
But when one looks at the roughly 200-300 photos of the hand-made signs attacking Obama at the tea parties and Washington march that have been published on the major news and commentary sites, the striking fact is that attacks on Obama based on these racial stereotypes represent only a minor percentage of the total. Let’s quickly look at the main categories:

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This item by James Vega is the third part of a three-part TDS Strategy Memo that was first published during the week of September 14, 2009. A PDF version of the entire memo is available here
Immediately after Obama’s inauguration, there was a widespread sigh of relief and a collapse into exhaustion among huge number of Obama’s supporters. Responding to this sentiment, and occupied with the transition, the DNC and OFA made relatively few attempts to organize directly “political” activities and events or to build a formal network of “real-world” local organizations in the first several months of the Obama administration. The general view was that “everyone needs a break.”
This, however, reflects a severely limited definition of what constitutes “political” activity. In democratic countries around the world many political parties routinely support a wide range of grass-roots community activities that are not explicitly “political” but which play a significant role in maintaining their political support. They sponsor local soccer teams, hold street fairs, run youth clubs, manage pool halls, arrange holiday trips and organize hobby groups. Small businesses that support the parties put permanent banners in their windows and build their customer base around a sense of community cultural loyalty to the political party.
During 2008, the Obama campaign began to evolve in this direction. The “Yes We Can” campaign took on characteristics of a social movement rather than just a traditional political campaign. The explosion of creativity expressed in music, art, videos and other media were inspired by Obama but reflected more than simply a campaign to elect an individual candidate. There was a clear feeling that Obama represented a cultural movement of the young rather than the old, of the urban, hip and educated rather than the small town and traditional. The Obama campaign became a broad social movement united by a common outlook, sensibility and identity. The Republicans were the past and the Democrats were the future.
It is now vital that Democrats reignite this spirit and energy and find the ways to carry it into daily community life. To be specific the Democratic community needs to launch a renewed “Yes We Can” movement – not a narrowly “political” campaign to support Obama’s specific proposals, but a broad cultural response to the negativity, nihilism and divisive “real America” chauvinism of the Republicans. It must express an outlook and perspective that is based on hope for the future and openness to change.
There are two different sub-groups to whom this must be addressed – Obama’s natural constituencies and the broader group of “persuadable” voters who are open to his message. Each requires a distinct approach.
The first sub-group is Obama’s natural constituencies and social environments

•College campuses and urban America – Some key steps in building a revitalized “Yes We Can” movement include building rapport with rock bands and DJ’s (e.g. by providing free items like specially developed high-quality designer clothing), sponsoring free rock concerts and art shows, Setting up special film screenings, book signings and neighborhood street fairs, engaging with the major social networks through art and music as well as narrowly “political” discussion and sponsoring sports teams in urban marathons, bicycle races, skateboarding and roller skating events.
•Stores and businesses (e.g. coffee houses, bicycle shops, environmentally friendly products stores, independent bookstores) – some key steps include encouraging “Yes We Can” sales days, happy hours, special events and neighborhood parties and developing business-connected give-away “goodies” for display and distribution (coffee cups, chocolates, tire gauges, natural soaps).
•Ethnic, political, social and community organizations. Some key steps include piggybacking on existing events and activities, incorporating “Yes We Can” motifs into ongoing programs and participating in organization-sponsored volunteer activities under a “Yes We Can” umbrella.

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This item by James Vega is the second part of a three-part TDS Strategy Memo originally published during the week of September 14, 2009. A PDF version of the entire memo is available here)
Democrats must face the unpleasant reality that that from now on any significant local or national political meeting anywhere in America is going to be attended by conservative activists who are mobilized and directed there through a pyramid of online social networks. At the apex of this pyramid is Freedomworks and directly below it is a second tier of a dozen other lobbying organizations.
Immediately after the April 15th Tea Parties it appeared that the local activists who had been mobilized might attempt to form permanent “bottom-up” grass-roots committees in communities across the country. Instead, the rather different framework that has emerged is a kind of permanent “on-call” cadre of activists across the country – individuals who are willing to download talking points and slogans from the online social networks and be directed to local meetings in their area or to national protests in Washington D.C.
The simple but unpleasant fact is that in every one of these local political town halls or other community meetings that is not contested, the conservative point of view will dominate. Therefore Democrats have no choice but to build their own version of this kind of online social organization — a “Democratic Activist Corps” or corps of “Democratic Minutemen” – dedicated activists with a similar “on-call” capability.
At first glance this would appear to be the responsibility of Organizing for America, but in fact, for two reasons, that organization is actually not well suited to manage this task.

First, Organizing for America cannot avoid following a very broad, “big tent” approach because of the huge, extremely heterogeneous group of people in its database. In order to avoid schisms and conflict among its members, it must stick to the most elementary and widely shared views. This is reflected in the rather bland slogans it recommends e.g. “Health Insurance Reform Now: Let’s Get It Done!”, “Stand up for Reform”, “Standing Together for Health Insurance Reform”
Second, because it is directly connected to the DNC and the Obama administration, OFA has to conduct itself in a way that does not reflect negatively on Obama. This makes it necessarily very cautious and highly averse to direct conflict and confrontation. This is reflected it its preference for organizing what are essentially non-confrontational “pep rallies” of its supporters rather than directing them to directly engage and challenge opponents of reform.

Given the huge, ten million member e-mail base of OFA, these choices are not necessarily wrong. OFA is metaphorically speaking a political oil tanker, only able to move and turn only very gradually and cautiously. But as a result of these two characteristics it is impractical to expect an organization like OFA to be able to successfully direct a Democratic counterpart to a fierce and combative organization like Freedomworks that has complete freedom of action. It is therefore preferable to organize a “Democratic Activist” or “Democratic Minutemen” network outside the formal structure of government or the DNC, just as Freedomworks and the other conservative online activist groups have done.
Although the issue agenda of such an organization will be the same as the official Democratic organizations, to be effective its ethos must more closely resemble that of a passionate social movement and its staff must be composed of people with the background and perspective of union or civil rights organizers – men and women with both the passion and the experience to tackle a bitter, well-financed and determined adversary.
Freedomworks has a 14 person Washington staff, six full-time field coordinators or state directors and an annual budget of 8 million dollars. Its economic model is based on obtaining contributions from the industries that derive benefits from its grass-roots organizing activities. To effectively compete with this, Democratic organizations like unions, environmental and other social issue groups, professional associations and similar pro-democratic forces will need to contribute substantial in-kind resources — of staff time, office space, supplies and technical support — to a Democratic Activist Corps of this kind. Even with significant in-kind support, however, a core of paid, full-time employees and a significant operating budget will still be needed.
The key demographic target for an “on call” activist network of this kind will be mid-sized, second and third tier cities and towns. The major American cities and urban areas already have more than sufficient pro-democratic organizations and social networks to mobilize activists when necessary for meetings, marches, demonstrations and so on. At the other end of the spectrum, modern conservatism is disproportionately concentrated in small towns, urban fringes and rural areas – so much so that in many cases any effective competition is simply impractical. It is in the mid-sized cities and towns across America where significant numbers of Democrats live but where there are relatively weak pro-Democratic organizations and institutions that an online social network of committed Democratic activists could make a substantial difference.
The April 15th tea party movement claimed that they held events in over 1,000 cities and towns and Nate Silver documented events in around six or eight hundred. Because of the more concentrated geographic distribution of the Democratic coalition this project can aim to achieve lower numerical targets. The project should, however, set clear timetables for creating “on-call” networks in first 50, then 100, and ultimately about 200 smaller U.S. cities and medium-sized towns. If possible, at least the first two and preferably all three of these goals should be achieved before the 2010 elections.
Also, by next spring, some of these Democratic minutemen will also need to receive a certain amount of training in non-violent methods because by that time it is virtually certain that there will be young right-wing “skinheads” and other quasi-military groups openly participating in anti-Obama demonstrations. The strategy of intimidation and physical aggression employed by such groups can best be defeated by disciplined non-violent tactics.

This item, by James Vega, is the first section of a three part TDS Strategy Memo that appeared during the week of September 14, 2009. A PDF version of the complete Memo is available here)
Three of the critical mistakes that led to the setbacks in the campaign for health care reform this summer actually preceded the launch of the health care campaign itself and were not the direct result of the specific legislative and political strategies the administration employed. They were rooted in decisions made in the first month or two after Obama took office.
They were:

1. A failure to create a clearly defined “core” message expressing Obama’s basic agenda and general philosophy of government.
2. A failure to immediately begin organizing an effective mass mobilization for that agenda.
3. A failure to begin building ongoing social and cultural community institutions to support that agenda.

There were understandable reasons why these failures of strategy occurred and why they were in significant measure unavoidable – Obama took office in the most chaotic economic circumstances of any president since the Great Depression. The point is not to assign blame but rather to accurately identify the critical tasks that have still not been accomplished and to develop a strategy for achieving them
Introduction
On inauguration day, Obama began his term amid the most dramatic expression of grass roots enthusiasm for a president in living memory – an unprecedented groundswell of support not just from African-Americans but from an extremely broad coalition of the young, the urban, the educated and other groups. The masses of people who traveled to Washington on January 20th or who gathered in other places across the country to celebrate Obama’s inauguration reflected a popular energy and degree of identification with a political figure and a political campaign that had not been previously exhibited since the Roosevelt era.
Within a short time, however, the widely shared feeling that the Obama campaign had not just been a standard political campaign but rather the dramatic beginning of a dynamic mass social movement began to sharply decline. By the time the April 15th “tea parties” rolled around there was barely any sign of spontaneous and energetic grass roots activity among Democrats – there was no nationwide outpouring of local community social activities like “support Obama” rock concerts, street parties, theme evenings at restaurants and clubs or special events to draw people together on an ongoing informal basis. There was no wide viral promotion of new post-election symbols like buttons, tea shirts or bumper stickers carrying forward the “Yes We Can” spirit and linking it to an emerging social movement organized around an agenda for change. There were no tables at shopping centers, people handing out leaflets on street corners or new post-election pro-Obama signs on lawns or lampposts or bulletin boards.
As long time grass-roots organizer Marshall Gans and Peter Drier noted in a Washington post op-ed:

Once in office, the president moved quickly, announcing one ambitious legislative objective after another. But instead of launching a parallel strategy to mobilize supporters, most progressive organizations and Organizing for America — the group created to organize Obama’s former campaign volunteers — failed to keep up… Organizing for America, for example, encouraged Obama’s supporters to work on local community service projects, such as helping homeless shelters and tutoring children. That’s fine, but it’s not the way to pass reform legislation…
Meanwhile, as the president’s agenda emerged, his former campaign volunteers and the advocacy groups turned to politics as usual: the insider tactics of e-mails, phone calls and meetings with members of Congress. Some groups — hoping to go toe-to-toe with the well-funded business-backed opposition — launched expensive TV and radio ad campaigns in key states to pressure conservative Democrats. Lobbying and advertising are necessary, but they have never been sufficient to defeat powerful corporate interests.

The DNC did send out letters. Organizing for America did invite its members to meet in small groups and gatherings and reminded the people on its e-mail lists to visit the OFA website. But the energy and scale of these efforts were deliberately low-key. The DNC letters were in essence standard fundraising appeals and the OFA events were quite specifically designed as “insider” activities for loyal supporters and not as energetic outreach to the general public.
The conservative opposition to Obama’s agenda, on the other hand, created a unique public event in the April 15th Tea Parties, developed a new nationwide set of internet-based social networks and widely popularized a broad ideological framework and perspective with which to attack the entire Obama agenda and administration – the notion that the individual elements of the Obama agenda were actually part of a general movement toward “a government takeover ”, “socialism” or “fascism” and represented an aggressive attack on traditional American values and institutions.
Democrats responded to this threat with an uncoordinated mixture of sputtering outrage, bemused ridicule and point by point refutation of more specific accusations. The charge of “socialism” seemed so absurd that a thoughtful attempt to refute it seemed unnecessary. There was no serious national communications strategy devised to clearly answer the simple but vital question “OK, if the Democratic agenda is not socialism or “government takeover” then exactly what is it?”
This underlying Democratic weakness at the levels of both communications strategy and grass roots organizing led directly to the near-total breakdown during August. The opponents of health care reform were mobilized, organized, armed with basic talking points and backed by professional communications and PR firms. Grass-roots Democrats were looking around in vain for someone to offer leadership and direction.
By late in the third week of August the Democrats had cobbled together a sufficient response to meet the conservative offensive and slow the media narrative of massive public opposition to Democratic plans. But the substantial slide in Obama’s job approval left the campaign for health care reform substantially weaker than it had been in the spring.
At this point, the urgent need is not only for short-term organizing to regain the initiative on health care reform but also for longer range efforts to build a nationwide movement that that revives the “Yes We Can” spirit of Jan 20th and transforms it into a sustained and active social movement to support the overall Democratic agenda. To do this Dems need to do three things.

1. Develop one simple, standardized “core” message that clearly defines the basic goals—as well as the limits — of Obama’s agenda
2. Develop a deeply committed and highly organized group of volunteers specifically dedicated to advocating that core message in meetings and discussions wherever they occur.
3. Develop local activities that can mature into enduring local community social and cultural institutions – institutions that can support a renewed “Yes We Can” movement and allow it to grow.

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This item by James Vega was originally published on September 13, 2009
In order to judge the significance of the conservative-led demonstration that took place in Washington D.C. this weekend, it is important to begin with a realistic estimate of the number of people who actually participated. This is unusually difficult in this particular case because Matt Kibbe, the President of the organizing group Freedomworks — understandably concerned as he was about the danger of liberal media bias — came up with the innovative solution of simply claiming that ABC news had estimated that1.2 to1.5 million people had participated – something the network itself most emphatically denied ever having done. Several conservative blog posts and tweets later this number had been carefully and judiciously narrowed to an even two million participants, making the demonstration larger not only than Obama’s inauguration – which shut down the entire transportation grid of Washington D.C. — but also the entire population – every man woman and child — of both Delaware and the District of Colombia. Say what you will about chairman Kibbe, whatever he may lack in empirical rigor, he certainly compensates for in audacity.
The only official estimate that was provided – by the Washington D.C. fire department – was that about 60,000-70,000 people participated, a number that was generally in line with standard crowd estimation techniques ( As it happened, because all the marchers were funneled through the narrow rectangle formed by Pennsylvania avenue between the white house and the capitol and time lapse photographs were taken, it was possible to use a number of standard “per square foot” and “flow per minute” crowd estimation formulas to roughly gauge the number of demonstrators. Both methods indicated a crowd size clearly below 100,000).
On the one hand, bringing 60,000-70,000 protestors to Washington is undeniably a substantial achievement, one that firmly establishes the existence of a new kind of conservative political organization – a composite organization that is a fusion of (1) a major TV network that provides popular political commentators and massive free advertising for a demonstration (2) a professionally managed coordinating organization (Freedomworks) that in this case provided $600,000 in direct funds, 14 full-time staff workers for logistics and planning and a robust, technically sophisticated web and social network infrastructure and (3) a set of decentralized social networks that enabled communication among the grass-roots protesters.
Although Freedomworks as an organization is as completely “Astroturf” as any firm in Washington, the large majority of the participants in the demonstration were undeniably “authentic” grass-roots conservatives – they were neither full-time Republican operatives nor members of traditional right-wing organizations. They generally paid their own way to participate in the demonstration and the vast creative and artistic panoply of their hand-made signs – which generally ranged from the histrionic and lurid to the clinically delusional – bespoke a perspective and sensibility that — whatever else it might be — could not seriously be described as regimented and obedient to any organization.
The demonstration apparently left most of the participants feeling optimistic and energized. “We are the real America” they confidently asserted to each other, and “the vast majority of Americans are now waking up” and joining the struggle to “take back our country”
The demonstrators’ sense of having reached an important milestone was not necessarily wrong, but among the organizers and strategists of the protest there was a different perception – that the critical objective of bringing a sufficient mass of protesters to Washington to actually intimidate wavering, “on the fence” members of congress had clearly failed. For this purpose the demonstration would have had to be at least in the 250,000-300,000 range, and preferably around a half a million. The demonstration needed to convince wavering members of congress that the protesters represented more than just the well-known conservative/Republican base and in this critical regard it simply did not succeed.
The consequences for the “Tea Party” (or, as Glen Beck has for some obscure reason renamed it, the “9/12 Movement”) are substantial. Mass demonstrations in Washington D.C that do not achieve their key objectives are subject to a form of diminishing returns. It becomes harder and harder to convince the same number of people to return to Washington for subsequent events. This is particularly the case with a new social movement like the Tea Party protests whose participants can become deeply demoralized when they begin to perceive that their efforts are actually having very little effect on the steady progress of health care reform and other Obama initiatives.
As a consequence, it is likely that by this November or December if not before the Tea Party/9-12 movement will begin to experience a major schism over strategy and tactics.

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